By: Brett Zongker, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP).- A Washington art gallery is showing a video that was removed from the National Portrait Gallery to protest what it calls censorship by the Smithsonian Institution.

The Transformer Gallery began showing the video piece, "A Fire in My Belly" by David Wojnarowicz, on Wednesday in honor of World AIDS Day. A short clip of the four-minute video shows ants crawling on a crucifix. It was meant to portray the suffering of an AIDS victim.

The Smithsonian's Portrait Gallery removed the piece Tuesday after the Catholic League and members of Congress complained the video was sacrilegious and anti-Christian.

Now the operators of the Transformer Gallery are organizing a march to the Portrait Gallery on Thursday to protest the removal of the piece by Wojnarowicz who died at age 37 of AIDS complications in 1992.